The Individual Application.-In the individual application certain broad features of Joseph's life are easy to be read, and these are all that I am able with confidence to speak of. It is plain how different in character is the suffering through which he passes to that of Jacob. Jacob's is disciplinary, the result, under God's government, of the evil of his own ways; Joseph, on the contrary, suffering for righteousness, the predestined path to glory:"if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him."

Child of old age is Joseph:how slowly, alas! the fruits of the new nature appear in us! Even for the saint, how true that " that which is first is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual"! Moreover, in the world through which we pass, all is hostile to the development of that which is of God. " He that separateth himself from evil maketh himself a prey ;" and separation from evil is a fundamental principle of the divine nature. Hence persecution for righteousness, not only from the world, but even at the hands of those who, chosen out of the world, are still practicing conformity with its ways. Nay, one's brethren are, alas! often in this case more hostile than the very world itself, just because their consciences are more awake to a testimony which condemns themselves. And indeed how few are there among the children of God who are thoroughly, and at all costs, subject to His Word! How many of all creeds, even the highest, whose code is liberty for self-will within certain wider or narrower limits! Thus, within the circle of professed Christian fellowship, how much real opposition which must be met by those who are Joseph’s, " adding," after the apostle's manner, disciples of the cross! Their path is individual, solitary often, save only for the God with whom they walk, and indeed because they have chosen to walk with Him. Yet it is thus a path of deepest, fullest blessing.

Rejected by his brethren, rejected by the world, Joseph carries with him the wisdom which interprets the scene around him, while master, too, of the circumstances by which he seems to be mastered. All things necessarily serve the One who is with him ever under all appearances, content Himself to find through seeming defeat His sure, eternal victory. Through all, he is preparing for the place where at last both his brethren are restored to him and also the world shall be his own:when Christ reigns, (of which we have been tracing the figures here,) His saints shall reign with Him.

Of this latter part, for the fullness of which we must wait to be with Him, we have nevertheless our anticipative foretastes. Even now, as the apostle tells us, the world is ours, long as it may be before we learn our spiritual supremacy over it. The word of life and of salvation is surely also ours as it was Joseph's, and it is ours to win to ourselves out of the world those who shall be in spiritual relationship to us also. This some would find as a type in Jacob's history, where it seems out of relation to the whole character and meaning of his life. It is Joseph rather, I believe, in whom we find this.

But while features of resemblance there necessarily are between the life of Christ as manifested thus in His people, and Him in whom alone it has been perfectly seen, yet the details, as remarked already, carry us continually away from the disciple to the Lord. This is surely designed and full of instruction for us. Is it not true that just so far as these features are developed in us it is the result of occupation with Christ Himself? "We all with open face beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit." In preparation for the scene of His actual presence, He thus as we advance in spiritual life becomes the object upon which our gaze fastens. It is not we that live, but Christ liveth in us. He abides in our hearts by faith. We "grow in grace" as we grow "in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Thus, as the Nazarite's course ended, he came to the door of the tent of meeting to offer to God the various offerings in the value of which-not of his vows performed-he found acceptance with God; and there, thus standing, his hands were filled with the heave-shoulder of the ram, and the unleavened cakes of the meat-offering. Christ in the perfection of His blessed life, Christ alone upholding all things by the power of that in which in unique, matchless devotedness He glorified God, the Christ in whom we are accepted, fills, and for eternity is to fill and occupy, us only.

The subjective types of Genesis closing in the objective is thus not a defect, nor (I believe) a thought due to mere obscurity of vision as to what is presented here. It is to the " fathers " the apostle says, as characteristic of them, " Ye have known Him that is from the beginning." And there he closes. There Genesis closes too, with the vision of the glory of the Lord, suffering and exalted, the government laid upon His shoulder, the true Zaphnath-paaneah, revealer of the secrets of His Father's heart, Bridegroom of His Gentile Bride, Saviour of the world. Where He fills the eye and occupies the heart, all else finds its just place and completest harmony ; communion with the Father is the portion of the soul, the power of the living Spirit realized. And here what limit of attainment is imposed, save that which we may impose? The study of these Genesis-pictures will have done nothing for us, if it does not invite our hearts more than ever into the King's banqueting-house, where the everlasting arms inclose and uphold us, and "His banner" over us is "love."